Carpinteria man sentenced to 135 months in federal prison for child pornography

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Giovanni Gonzalez, 34, was sentenced Monday to 135 months in federal prison for receiving thousands of child sexual abuse videos while he was on probation for a previous conviction for crimes involving online child sexual exploitation.

The Carpinteria resident was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and also ordered to pay $24,000 in restitution, the Justice Department said in a news release about Monday’s sentencing.

Gonzalez pleaded guilty on February 5 to receiving child pornography, the Justice Department said.

“Within days of his release from state prison for despicable acts committed against children, this defendant returned to his deplorable behavior, obtaining thousands of videos depicting the sexual exploitation of children,” said U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada. “Protecting our children is a core mission of my office, and we will continue to use all available resources to target those who participate in this vicious market that traffics in child abuse.”

Under his plea agreement dated Dec. 1, 2022, Gonzalez was released from California State Prison after serving more than 17 years in prison for previously posing online as a teenage girl and coercing at least eight girls into sexual acts. He was also convicted at the time of possessing and sharing child abuse material online.

Later that same month in 2022, Gonzalez began receiving child sexual abuse material through various sources, including WhatsApp via his cellphone, the Justice Department reported.

On December 28, 2022, Gonzalez knowingly received numerous files containing child abuse material from a single source via WhatsApp and then saved the files to his mobile phone’s memory card, the Justice Department said.

On January 7, 2023, Gonzalez turned over his cellphone to his probation officer as part of the search conditions during his probation, the Justice Department said.

According to the Justice Department, after an inspection of Gonzalez’s cell phone, approximately 2,684 videos containing child abuse material were found on his phone, depicting several “prepubescent children engaged in sexually explicit conduct or sexual exploitation of an infant or toddler.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Santa Maria Police Department investigated this case with assistance from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office.

“Child sexual exploitation is unacceptable and will not be tolerated in our society,” said Akil Davis, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “This case underscores the FBI’s commitment to investigating all offenders who harm our children, and we will ensure that these individuals no longer pose a threat to our communities.”